Retail in 2013

I had written about Indian Retail trends and future relevancy in 2008 here. It was a feeling of satisfaction to go back and check periodically and see that most of it was true.

With 4 years, many changes in the economy, professional life, egged on by people, I thought of giving it a shot once again. Here goes:

• With the over capacity of Malls in most places, and most Retailers playing a wait & watch game, ‘Partnership’ aka Revenue Sharing will gain momentum, at least for the next 2-3 years.
• Size will continue being relevant. Most retailers would fit into the 2000-5000 carpet and that too trying it at a couple of locations before going whole hog.
• Those who have not used the time to become efficient in the Supply Chain and merchandising area will continue to bleed.
• The last couple of years have been “Sale/Offer” Price wars driven with dates extending longer than advisable. Who will blink? The larger retailers have a planned approach, the mid & smaller trying to ape are just losing money.
• Loyalty programs except a couple, just don’t seem to work and the CRM/Brand managers end up aping the west. The need is to ‘Listen’ to the customers/prospects on a consistent & sustained basis.
• Convenience has become big, particularly with E tailers willing to bleed to acquire customers & there seems to be no game plan to combat this except get on the band wagon.
• “Social Media” the new go to tool for marketers, will continue to fail, unless it is used for the purpose it is designed.
• ‘Analytics’ a word passionately used by everyone, but there is still no decision matrix applied on the results and I see this continuing.
• Advertising will continue it’s growth because it is the easiest to utilize.
• Hiring at the Top will become economical with Deliveries & Goals linked variables; at the middle will remain constant, with processes & systems taking over; will be expensive at the bottom, competing with other industries.
• Consumers will continue to be fickle, demanding with the options and communication available.

Focus, Investment, Evaluation, Mid changes, keeping a constant eye on the bottom line would be the way to go forward.

Anaggh Desai

Conceptualizer, Visionary, Strategic thinker, Executioner, Aggressive, Focused  Meticulous, with superlative team building, people skills, excellent net worker, sensitive & accessible to employee & vendor needs is how colleagues & people describe him.

This post first appeared on Anaggh Desai’s blog http://www.anaggh.com/2013/01/21/retail-2013-some-thoughts/ on 21st Jan 2013.

Anaggh tweets @anaggh. Feedback is welcome.